I had posted this on the WLS Veterans forum, but thought it would be a good idea to post this on this forum as well.

I had gastric bypass surgery 5 years ago. I was incredibly determined and managed to lose 180 lbs. in a year's time. I'm 5' 9.5" and I went from a size 28 to a size 10. Now, I've regained a lot of weight and I'm starting over. I thought it might be helpful to list the steps that caused my weight gain. My goal is to tackle these 6 and starting moving in the right direction. Does anyone else have additional things that contributed to regaining weight?

1. Stop weighing yourself
2. Stop tracking your food intake
3. Stop exercising
4. Drink liquids with meals and ignore the 15 minutes before/30 minutes after rule
5. Start eating your old favorite foods
6. Stop visiting Bariatric Pal forums

I would add in "Stop checking in with your bariatric team"

Pandemonium - Excellent Step! It needs to be 7 easy steps...

21 minutes ago, CharlotteKat said:

I had posted this on the WLS Veterans forum, but thought it would be a good idea to post this on this forum as well.

I had gastric bypass surgery 5 years ago. I was incredibly determined and managed to lose 180 lbs. in a year's time. I'm 5' 9.5" and I went from a size 28 to a size 10. Now, I've regained a lot of weight and I'm starting over. I thought it might be helpful to list the steps that caused my weight gain. My goal is to tackle these 6 and starting moving in the right direction. Does anyone else have additional things that contributed to regaining weight?

1. Stop weighing yourself
2. Stop tracking your food intake
3. Stop exercising
4. Drink liquids with meals and ignore the 15 minutes before/30 minutes after rule
5. Start eating your old favorite foods
6. Stop visiting Bariatric Pal forums

I would add having medical issues and using certain medications can contribute to weight gain that's hard to mitigate.

(it's well documented that meds, steroids and psych, cause massive weight gains in a very short period of time)

Congratulations on your new journey ♥️

Edited September 30, 20205 yr by GreenTealael

Your list most definitely hits the majority of the reasons I experienced the weight gain I did. When I first started having weight creep back in, I ended up ashamed of it and after a bad visit with my bariatric team about it, I left and didn't go back to them.

Which sure the heck did not help matters!

Those, though, are the main pitfalls for bariatric patients to look out for!

I would add drinking sodas and alcohol and snacking with chips and candy

18 minutes ago, Joy O. said:

I would add drinking sodas and alcohol and snacking with chips and candy

Yes! Soda is a gateway drug...at least for me it is!

Darn. I was eloquent in Veterans.

Something different... think of something different Tek.

Well, OK, I got one:

Hiding. Hiding from our Doc, support group, friends, relatives, the scale. That's a sure sign you know you're doing it wrong.

We stop measuring our touchstones because we know it will be yet another accusation of our failure. We are so much tougher on ourselves than anyone is in real life.

I've hidden.

Tek

Thanks for this... I'm only 2.5 months out, but I live in fear of regain. We all think at the beginning that we're totally committed and never going to regain, but a lot of people do -- even people who were tremendously successful in losing weight initially. I've spent a lot of time wondering what makes the difference between keeping the weight off permanently and gaining most or all of it back and how I can do the former. It's easy to say that I will now, but who knows how my life will look 5 years from now?

Thank you for this! As a newbie, I NEEDED this slap in the face. I've had friends and co-workers ask "what can you eat" out of concern and courtesy - NOT being jerks. This week at work was a particular struggle with:

1. Tracking

2. Choosing food wisely

3. Drinking with meals

Going to hold myself accountable here and do better. - Ate 6 waffle fries for dinner one night when there were other much better choices (just plain ole STUPID), sipped on water throughout dinner almost every night, went to a mexican restaurant last night - Only had a small plateful of a co-workers fajitas (good move), but THEN ate chips - WTH was I thinking???!! Net result this week - I am up a pound.

So thinking I might want to add something to your list - "Start being stupid during social situations"

7 hours ago, BigSue said:

I've spent a lot of time wondering what makes the difference between keeping the weight off permanently and gaining most or all of it back and how I can do the former.

I still sometimes wonder and I have no answer. And I also think that some of the so-called successful old-timers are not really as compliant as the n00bs think.

Anyway, I think a lot of people are asking the wrong question. They're asking "What can I do?" (do the answers in this thread really come as such a surprise? honestly, I don't think they do) when what they should be asking: "How can I do?"